A legal secretary, also called legal assistant, works in law offices or organizations to provide administrative, research and organizational support to lawyers and paralegals. While legal secretaries perform some standard secretarial duties, they spend most of their time performing tasks that are specific to the law field. Other responsibilities of legal secretaries include the following:
Preparing correspondence to various parties
Transcribing and proofreading legal documents, including briefs, motions, pleadings and subpoenas
Maintaining docket control systems to track legal filing deadlines
Creating and populating spreadsheets
Updating and indexing pleadings and discovery binders
Scheduling meetings, closing, hearings, site inspections and depositions
Drafting correspondence and routine legal documents, such as legal invoices and deposition notices
Assisting legal research and communicating with lawyers, experts, vendors, opposing counsel and other staff